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i-Device Manufacturing Unprofitable To China
N!NJA writes "One of my favorite facts of this past year was the proof that China makes almost nothing out of assembling Apple's iPads and iPhones. From the article: 'If you want lots of jobs and lots of high paying jobs then you’re not going to find them in manufacturing. They’re where the money is, in the design, the software and the retailing of the products, not the physical making of them. Manufacturing is just so, you know, 20th century.'"
As you can see the two largest inputs are materials and Apple’s own profit margin. Despite the machine being assembled in China it’s still true that the value of that labour is trivial: 2% or so of the cost of the machine.
So what? It's not like iPads and iPhones are the only devices they're making. In fact, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and other Asian countries are making almost all of electronics in the whole world. They might only profit 2% of every device, but the sheer scale of the whole manufacturing industry more than makes up for that.
Besides, Apple's devices are notoriously known for having huge profit margin going to Apple, without actual technical or manufacturing reasons for that. It is, however, only true for Apple as every other manufacturer is actually also working on really thin profit margins. When taking into account every electronics company and not just Apple, this makes the Chinese manufacturers share comparatively much larger. Comparing it to Apple tells absolutely nothing.
We go from "solid jobs have gone to China" to "there are no jobs, enjoy irrelevance." Yay?
I feel better about my Chinese assembled devices purchases.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
They are not making these things out of the goodness of their hearts.
Palm trees and 8
Earth is getting saturated. Soon only India will be left as cheap labor. Soon after that, with markets like China, EU and the US, the Indians will be in the same position the Chinese are in now.
Will there ever be an expanding economy when there is no cheap labor left?
One of my favorite facts of this past year was the proof that China makes almost nothing out of assembling Apple's iPads and iPhones. From the article: 'If you want lots of jobs and lots of high paying jobs then youâ(TM)re not going to find them in manufacturing. Theyâ(TM)re where the money is, in the design, the software and the retailing of the products, not the physical making of them.
Sounds like someone that justifies few jobs versus the large amount of jobless.
The things that person fails to account for would be currency manipulation, government ownership of business, lack of freedom for those who do that manufacturing work, and less-than-honest accounting that is prevalent in China. Correct for those, then one can cut through the author's
If you want lots of high-paying jobs in the US and EU, kill every single guest worker program (fraud-ridden at any level), get rid of the ability to use length of unemployment (or employment) as a direct or indirect means of discriminating against the unemployed, and get rid of the tax and benefit dodges with second-class forms of labor (e.g. contractors, consultants). Finally, make it harder to not hire US citizens, within the US by making any tax cut follow the worker and is dependent on the length of time.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
the workers are paid like crap? You can't make a lot of money when you're paying a few cents to a dollar /hr. Raise their wages, add $50 bucks to the cost of iCrap and suddenly China's probably not doing so bad.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Oops, meant:
The things that person fails to account for would be currency manipulation, government ownership of business, lack of freedom for those who do that manufacturing work, and less-than-honest accounting that is prevalent in China. Correct for those, then one can cut through the author's bullshit that they call "fact"
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Their chart says Chinese labor earns 2% of each iPad sold, so about $10 per device. There have been millions of devices sold. Are we now claiming that fifty million dollars is trivial? And since it's such a small portion, Apple could easily double or even triple the wages without a major impact to their profit margin. And don't forget, that's just the iPad. Throw in the iPhones and the iPods, not to mention all the non-Apple devices. And then you have to account for all the support jobs... people who build and maintain the factories, or sell things to the workers. In the end, you have billions of dollars in wages fluttering out of the country every year, all in the name of enriching the executive staff.
I get why cheap trinkets need to be made overseas. But on objects that cost hundreds of dollars and have a profit margin north of 20%, there's no reason for it, except to make the rich richer while making the country poorer.
Why else would China give freedom for multinationals, but not give it to regular, unconnected individuals?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Post summary:
I don't like Apple products and personally have no need for a tablet, therefore anyone who does is an inferior human.
The carriers make more. The study showed that the #1 profit share goes to iPhone telcom carriers (AT&T) over a 2 year contract. Which is why the carrier subsidizes the phone, paying Apple directly.
My main takeaway from the article was that carriers must be forced to unbundle phones from network access, to stop oppressing the consumer. Carriers should continue to subsidize upfront HW costs under a longterm payoff contract, but it must not be mandatory (or prohibitively expensive to avoid) for anyone who wants their own phone to buy access to any mobile network, at the same cost rate as a bundled phone does. Just like desktop Internet and voice service. Forcing the unbundling would do for competition, pricing and innovation what the forced unbundling of AT&T (still the one!) did starting in the 1980s, and what the inhibitions of bundling PCs with an ISP did for the Internet.
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make install -not war
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In Asia it is common practice to do things cheap or below cost until you wipe out the competition, then raise prices.
Wrong.
The claim that we should abandon manufacturing and concentrate on "high value" jobs, like design and engineering is nonsense. The reason manufacturing is important is because it creates additional jobs beyond just those involved in a particular product. For example, the Samsung plant in Texas which created "only" 1100 jobs. What about all the machinery in that plant? It didn't magically appear out of nowhere. Someone had to design and build it. That's more jobs. Other companies supplied the steel, plastic and electronics that went into creating that machinery. That's more jobs. Other companies supplied those steel, plastic and electronics companies with various raw materials and equipment. That's more jobs.
The past couple decades have involved China trading a lot of cheap labor in exchange for Western technical know-how. China knows most of what there is to know by now about making gadgets. Eventually China could just create money for its own economy (by credit or printing it) and it could sell to internal markets and raise its material standard of living a lot. Export driven economies only have big value if you need imports. Although it is true that China does import stuff, so it will need to replace some of that with internal import replacing approaches, like Jane Jacobs wrote about (like solar energy instead of oil, or composites instead of metals) -- but aside from US food products, much raw materials come from other than the USA (like Australia or soon Africa). Although there remains a strategic military advantage for China in having Chinese products everywhere in the USA, so they may still do some of that. For example, most ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in the USA comes from China. How much of it is really inspected? When is the last time you had something with extra vitamin C? That makes the USA's health very dependent on Chinese good will, as just one of many, many examples. Eastern minds typically grow up playing "Go", which teaches a very different way of "winning" (by encirclement) than Western Chess. Granted, the cost of this is that the average Chinese citizen has suffered a lower material standard of living for this sort of foreign policy (a cost that does not show up as "military" spending).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Works fine for groceries and many other companies. its all about volume. Sounds like capitalism is really starting to take root over there, at least the 'greed' component of it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yet another geek, who has little to no understanding about consumer demand. If the tablet trend was purely due to 'Apple Fanatics', then those fanatics would have bought their tablets and that would have been the end of it, yet almost every PC manufacturer on the planet is struggling to produce their own tablet. There is obviously a huge market and demand for devices like these. Simply claiming there is no logical reason for demand for these tablets because YOU don't see a need doesn't mean these don't meet a need in those consumers that buy them. Even sadder that you trolled out the treasured 'Apple Fanatics' and 'status symbol' buzzwords and of course were rewarded with an Insightful for it.
PC's have been trending towards simple email/web/media devices for years. The 'need' consumers see in a simple device that meets all of those wants, and is portable, has a small footprint, and easy to use, and you seriously don't see why people want tablets? I have to assume the disconnect between geeks and the regular 'joe user' is the fact that geeks are typically always power users and tablets simply don't fit the bill for that type of user, but for the vast majority of today's computing users, a tablet fits their needs perfectly for casual browsing, email, listening to music, and playing the occasional game.
Claiming the only reason for Apple's success is due to it's 'gullible' users may also get you an insightful mod, but it falls far from the truth. Apple and Linux users are shown to be far less gullible than Windows users, better educated, and tech savvy. There's a reason Apple has been number one in consumer satisfaction for something like the last decade. Their shit works, it's good quality, and people don't have to fuck with it all the time. Those are powerful draws to a casual user who browses the web, checks email, listens to music, and plays the occasional time-waster game while waiting for a doctors appointment or whatnot.
That's exactly how it works in rest of the world. Apart from U.S., of course.
Then let's not manufacture anything then. Let's all be designers. Because, you know, all these devices are going to magic themselves into existence.
Such is the logic of pointy-haired-bosses.
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BMO
The only kind of artist Mr. Jobs was is a con artist. Neither good or bad. He learned his con from the pros: the charlatan gurus in India.
Every industrialized country has gone through this phase where subsistence farmers abandon their farms for difficult factory jobs. They don't like the factory jobs, but they like it better than subsistence farming.
They save a little bit of money, and produce children who wind up becoming educated and form the middle class.
To say that China's not profiting from these assembly plants is taking a very short-term view.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm not an economist, but the matter of "who's paying whom" seems significant when it comes to manufacturing jobs. Usually the money is flowing in from the outside. On the aggregate, then, that would seem to enrich the country doing the manufacturing. Obviously if you could train your entire populace to do something more lucrative (say, design) and then have your trading partners outsource that work to your country then you'd rake in even more money. However, one wonders whether that's feasible given the inherent variance in human ability. There will almost always be some portion of the population which, for whatever reason (lack of inherent ability, lack of education, poor choices, etc.) are unable to do much beyond manufacturing or other unskilled labor. For this group to be actively engaged in manufacturing seems like a "win" compared to, say, having them all be unemployed or performing some unskilled task (other than manufacturing) where the compensation comes from domestic sources (e.g. working as a maid).
When it comes to the U.S., I've always felt like it should endeavor to compete at all levels of the labor spectrum. Currently it is not competitive in sectors like manufacturing because the cost of unskilled labor is simply too high relative to countries like China. That's something that could potentially be addressed via government intervention (possibly in the form of wage subsidies). As it stands, the U.S. has basically "punted" on manufacturing. It seeks to employ its labor solely in white collar pursuits and servicing its own (very high) domestic consumption. Instead of assembling electronics, the unskilled in the United States flip burgers, work in retail, clean houses, work as nannies, etc. Basically they meet the demand of a highly consumer-driven economy. When that consumption dips, however, such as happened during the recent recession, you see massive job losses (and these concentrated among those with lower incomes).
Let's look at the issue from the other end: top down. If it's true that China doesn't make net revenue manufacturing stuff for the US, then the overall trade balance between the US and China would be neutral. But it's not, to the tune of $2e11 per year.
Verdict: argument is false.
Abort, retry, fail
Every review for these tablets from all of the vendors you mentioned shows that are substandard, lacking, unpolished, or any other number of descriptive words, or at the very best, on-par with the Apple devices for the same price, and you wonder why these others aren't selling?
Even if you're 100% right, the author of the Forbes article would have no grounds to disagree with you. He'd simply interpret that as proof that branding is the creator of "real" value, whereas design and engineering can be lumped in with manufacturing, as work for dopes who really don't deserve even what little they get for their meager contribution to the pie chart.
It's just a cute story of one (unsuccessful) developer of a "cute" app. Yawn. Someone is apparently making around $2B in iOS app sales though.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Yes, Apple can sell millions of tablets, but this is only because they have a very gullible following that other manufacturers just don't have.
Most iPhones purchased 3-4 years ago still receive software updates from Apple. You won't find another domestic phone manufacturer with that level of support. Techies bemoan people's use of macintosh, but 1 in 7 people use a mac, and yet 98% of the phone calls to technical support are for PCs. If PC owners are comparatively "smarter", shouldn't that number be lower? "Apple fanatics, on the other, don't care about utility, but rather just the possession of expensive status symbols" -- I would say that the statistics do not bear that out. Apple customers want things that are easy to use, have long end-of-life product support, and have excellent customer service.
It's a very convoluted one not built upon the more traditional and common factors underlying real markets caused by need and demand.
Yeah. I can't see the appeal in a product you can take anywhere, use for 10 hours, and provides quick and ready access to the internet and multimedia resources, and has a powerful enough processor to play many kinds of games. Oh. Wait... that's what us "PC users" keep hoping our phones are going to do for us. Someday. Also... if the market isn't doing what you want it to, it must have become martian and no longer reacting to supply and demand instead of say, simply not meeting your expectations.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
A properly designed assembly line uses humans as supervisors and QA persons, not machines
I've worked on the old kind, where I actually manhandled truck rims, and it was an insanely expensive way to make them. The same time, Honda opened its assembly line for the old 305 twin engine: no humans did work! They made sure the machines worked properly.
If course, you needed to locate those lines where there were good (if expensive) machine designers, engineers and repairmen. For Honda, that meant the home islands. For certain other companies, it now means the USA and Canada.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
The big question is: by whom where they paid?
Simple answer: by the employers they work for. That means that those employers had the money (by making a tidy profit) to actually pay their employees. How did they get that money? By selling loads of stuff. To whom? To consumers that got a lot of money by working...
The big drive behind all this was the rampant growth of the population in those periods.
Compare that to the current situation: population growth is stagnant (we're talking about people with money to spend, of course), which means a declining amount of purchases. Less money to be made by companies, so also less money to spend on employees. Which leads to even less spending.
The whole problem about our economic situation is that our economy is based on (rapid, maybe even exponential) growth. Once that stops, you can expect severe cutbacks. The housing bubble is not the reason for the recession, it helped to postpone it for a couple of years.
Watch this: The most important video you'll ever see for a good explanation.
Fake article. Why do other places write that most Android developers flocking to iOS? Perhaps it is Apple's five year lead in the smartphone industry? Perhaps it is the fact that iOS doesn't have piracy as a common issue (installious does not work with current jailbreaks), or perhaps the fact that iOS shown to be (for intents and purposes) 100% secure against malware, other than JB phones with the default password being attacked?
There's a good argument against this study's conclusions, in that Apple's electronics are "iconic" but not the majority of sales even in their own markets, precisely because of the lower margins and more commodified products in the Android share of the market that better fits the Chinese manufacturing model. The study probably has very different numbers for the overall market in which Apple's products compete but fail to win.
This situation is of course is exactly the same as has always been the case with Apple products, since the Apple ][+. Would you make the case on Chinese PC manufacturing using only the numbers from Mac manufacturing?
The Chinese companies aren't able to make the carriers' profit, nor Apple's. I suppose they're not able to make the Korean or Japanese profit off memory, touchscreen and other cutting-edge components, or they would be. So they're profiting where they can: the manufacturing. 2% profit on a premium-priced product selling hundreds of millions of units is pretty good. It's hardly "unprofitable to China" just because it's far more profitable to other countries.
It's a small profit, but that's all they can get. The electronics assembly labor market is global and evidently the most extremely competitive part of the entire supply chain.
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make install -not war
I get unlimited talk text and data for $40 month in the US. I can't believe people are suckered into $100 month contracts by a free phone.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
We know that selling things at or below their cost is an aggressive and even offensive tactic. We counter these tactics locally by making them illegal. We counter these tactics internationally through the use of tariffs and import banning. It's interesting that for the moment, these methods only apply to finished and unfinished goods.
Costs of labor are subjective and relative at the very least and impossible to prove at the worst. Some people might say "this is a self-correcting" thing where eventually, the expenses will require increasing prices for labor. But I don't think that's the case in places like China and surrounding areas. In any case, the purpose of this "dumping" is to make it so attractive to outsource labor that local labor facilities and locations are abandoned. Once the buyers are hooked and have no other alternatives, they are then free to charge any price they wish after the competition is starved.
There is no substitute for ForeFlight on an iPad. I'm not carrying a laptop in the cockpit to view charts, and it saves me hundreds of dollars a year compared to paper charts. You go fly a plane with a smart phone and a netbook in your lap and tell me that it's better.
Throughout history there has never been money in being the laborer in mass production, except in modern U.S. and Europe, where those jobs are facing extinction. The money has always been in the non-labor side of things. I'm not talking about shareholders and executives, I'm talking about shift managers, QC managers, engineers, accountants, etc. A 1300 employee factory is going to have at least 1000 laborers and 300 non-laborers. This is why China has a booming middle-class and the U.S. has a shriveling middle-class. The average U.S. worker is simply over-qualified for line production work and in some logical parallel universe these people are working non-labor positions and are not only employed, but better paid.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Post summary: I don't like Apple products and personally have no need for a tablet, therefore anyone who does is an inferior human.
I'd also add that it is an excellent example of false consensus effect whereby a person tends to overestimate how much other people agree with him or her. I don't have a use for X therefor no one could possibly have a use for X. Which is probably more accurately, "I don't think I have a use for X.." because the poster appears to have never used a tablet in a business setting.
At my prior employer all employees at tablets. They are the perfect device to bring to a meeting, especially if you are trying to go paperless. Notebooks and netbooks are bulky and not as good at some task (such as checking your calendar to set up a follow-up meeting.. while standing). I tended to go to all meetings or people's desks when chatting (work related) with my tablet and log book in hand (both the same size). That way I had all references I needed. I never had to head back to my desk to check something, or lay down a computer on their desk, open it, hunch over the desk or find a chair... a tablet is just better for some things. Now that I'm a consultant I use it to track my work and pretty much use it exclusively on planes (my 13" computer fits on my lap, but is nearly impossible to both type on and see the screen at the same time).
Tablets work for me, they worked for my coworker but they won't necessarily work for everyone. It's hard to accurately decide if they will work in a business situation without mass adoption though.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I know it's slightly off topic, but are we really so detached from reality that we actually believe that we have more jobs when profits are higher?
There's an optimal balance where profits are enough to motivate investors, but companies spend as much as possible on production. Profit is an inefficiency that has value only insofar as it keeps capital flowing in from investors, when needed. The idea that corporate ethics implies maximizing profit at the cost of all other business objectives has done quite enough damage to investors. If you bleed off too much profit, you destroy value for the investor overall. (In fact, if that profit isn't going straight to dividends or back into the business, which it usually isn't, then it's probably bad for the investor, even in the short run.)
I'm not one of these types that argues that America is going down the toilet because we lost manufacturing jobs, and we should freak out. But the argument that manufacturing is not as valuable to the economy because it's less profitable than being Apple is nonsensical. There are only so many Apple shares around, and their value depends on other businesses with solid value as well, which aren't as profitable but have other advantages.
China != the company that builds iPhones. China as a whole is making a whole lot more from iPhone production than the profit, which, according to the article, is quite reasonable anyway.
Likewise, America != Apple. Since Apple's profitability is so much higher, its value to America is proportionally lower, knowing that Apple's profit doesn't generally get spent proportionally in America. (Not that Apple isn't great or I'm not glad to have their jobs in the US. That doesn't happen because they're so profitable, though. It's just correlated with profitability, i.e., Apple is good at what they do, they make money, they can afford to bank a lot of cash, and they can also afford to hire the best people. Then, they use their cash and people wisely to do their business well, a virtuous cycle.)
Associating corporations and their profits with their home countries makes no sense, even if they operated entirely within their home countries. The purpose of corporations is to allow capital to flow freely, including across national borders. Corporations are only boons to countries to the extent that they spend money and pay taxes in those countries.
Every other manufacturer's tablet isn't fun to use, has poor application support, and poor battery life. The iPad works well for lots of normal people and is affordable (but not cheap).
China's cheap labor advantage is only sustainable as long as their factory assembly workers are still more dextrous, faster, and cheaper than the prevailing robotics technology of the day.
That is still the case, but for how much longer?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The actual quote is Our analysis [5] of the smartphone value chain showed that carriers in fact earn gross profits over the life of a typical 2-year contract several times those earned by handset vendors.
Keywords: gross profits. That's sale price ($199 + 24 months * $80/month) - cost of goods ($549). Notably absent are operating expenses.
FY 2010, AT&T had total revenue of $124 billion and gross profits of $72 billion (58%). But net income was only $20 billlion (16%). Apple (FY 2010) had total revenue of $65 billion, gross profit of $25 billion (38%). But net income was $14 billion (21%).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
A friend and I were looking at Metro PCS (I assume that's where you get your unlimited for $40 deal, since that's the only place I know of that has that low of a price). He got a phone through them for a few months and eventually returned it since the call quaility and signal strength was unacceptable. So you get what you pay for. Then again we are surrounded by mountains so maybe that had something to do with it. I imagine it's probably better on completely flat ground. I pay $104 a month to Verizon because in 8 years I've only had to deal with a few dead spots. I'm willing to pay for that kind of coverage. Then again that also may vary due to location.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
It's true, if I have 500 dollars to throw away on a tablet I'd rather have an iPad. If, however, someone made something just as good for maybe 2 or 3 hundred dollars I'd opt for that instead. Unfortunately, all the tablets I see for 2 or 3 hundred are sadly lacking. The next best thing I've seen is the smaller Nook tablet from B&N and I may actually get one of those. The screen is very good and for the money it's hard to beat. If I had to have a 10" tablet though I don't see anything in the same league with the iPad without spending nearly the same money. If I'm to pay about the same anyway then why not get the best? It's only common sense. Not having 500 dollars to waste though I'll have to pass.
There is a dramatic difference between "job" and "no job", especially when you want to "buy stuff".
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
,,,stooge and planted clown. Gee whiz, dood, so you think offshoring all the jobs to China, i.e., offshoring the vast majority of American production assets and capital assets is a great idea, dood? So falling tax revenues, both federally and at the local level is a great idea, dood? This moron and their moronic post is truly beneath the level of intelligence at /.
Actually, netbook form-factor are much more comfortable while lying down or sitting straight, as evidenced by tablet stands and lap-desks made for those cases.
Tablets are most comfortable form-factor while standing/walking, which is why they were used by doctors, for example, even before tablet boom, and while squatting on the toilet - which is a big part of tablet usage today.
There's 31% in "materials", 5% in "unidentified profits", and 15% in "distribution and retail". That's a lot of profit unaccounted for. I imagine a bunch of the bottom rung supplies are hiding for tax purposes their profits in material costs. Even the Apple profits should be decomposed by country for this comparison to make sense.
In addition, "materials" is not the same unit of measure as the country-derived components or "distribution and retail". One would need to decompose these missing parts as well to see who really is making the profit.
The thing to remember here is that manufacture is not just a cog in a machine. A Chinese manufacture could own its materials supply chain, a part of Apple, and the distribution channel for Apple products in China, meaning it could be getting a lot more profit from iPad sales than the pie chart suggests.
Whaah whaah, I have to actually get off my fat ass and do my job. Whaah whaah
FTFY
Actually it is Simple Mobile which resells TMobile service so coverage is the same as TMobile.
For $50 month you can get the same thing directly from ATT Or TMobile.
I see no reason to spend 2x just to get a "free" phone. I'm not that stupid.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
So what? It's not like iPads and iPhones are the only devices they're making. In fact, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and other Asian countries are making almost all of electronics in the whole world. They might only profit 2% of every device, but the sheer scale of the whole manufacturing industry more than makes up for that.
There's an appropriate quote by TSMC Chairman Morris Chang: "You Americans measure profitability by a ratio. There’s a problem with that. No banks accept deposits denominated in ratios. The way we measure profitability is in 'tons of money'. You use the return on assets ratio if cash is scarce. But if there is actually a lot of cash, then that is causing you to economize on something that is abundant."
The decline of the USA is in no small part due to them having outsourced so much manufacturing elsewhere. It creates dependencies of various kinds and is more of a brain-drain than the financial idiots realise. Seriously, these are the "finance gurus" who have brought us the economic crisis - do we really listen to them for wisdom?
Design and innovation does not require much manpower. It provides jobs for thousands, but not for millions. Manufacturing feeds many more families, and supports many more people with technical know-how. Every company that has outsourced essential parts of its production chain has learnt painful lessons. Not necessarily so painful that it was all a bad idea - outsourcing can be profitable and the right approach. But like all the business "wisdoms" of the past 50 years, its advantages have been over-hyped and its shortcomings understated.
And, most importantly, business economics and macro economics are not the same thing and don't follow the same rules, and what is good in one context is not necessarily good in the other.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Let us assume the article is correct? So how does this help any industrialized nation?
The US has 300,000,000 people.
Apple employes 60,000 people... many of whom work in retail. Apple is perhaps the most successful innovative company right now.
I personally have great frustration with those who simply tout this 'high-end' job. The 'creative class' and all that crap. Okay great, there are these good jobs in innovation. I work in the field. I get it. But there's not enough to sustain 300,000,000 Americans.
There's only room so many innovative companies doing smartphones or consoles or operating systems or solar panels ... or whatever. Do you know what is special about design jobs? They only need a relatively small number of people do the design.
As other nations become prosperous, you'll have billions of reasonably educated people competing for these design jobs.
Right now, one might argue Silicon Valley is the epicenter of innovation. Great. And that operates in a state with about 35 000 000 people and an 11% unemployment rate.
Even assuming we had a super amazing education system in California that generated brilliant people capable of doing work... silicon valley is not hiring 3 500 000 people. Heck, I'm pretty sure we saw layoffs at many firms in the news. Some companies are hiring of course... in the thousands perhaps.
My point... innovation is great. It generates a few jobs. It makes some people rich. But it doesn't do crap for the 95% of the population. As a result, we shouldn't be so concerned with the innovation economy or any of that.
Small countries with a few million people like Singapore or Sweden can try and sustain their economies off of innovation, but any large nation... be it the US or China or India will never be able to.
The private sector of these countries will be composed of manufacturing, farming, call-centers, service workers... If you can't design an economic system to work for them, it won't.
Stop living in your little bubble in academia or silicon valley with this religious belief in growth and innovation...
and start looking at the numbers.
Running ics on my Xoom right now. It thoroughly rocks. Very smooth and typing lag on web pages is gone. Its still alpha but I'm using it as a daily driver with no problem.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
You were semi-correct up until the "for the same price". All the reviews I have seen for tablets that are "substandard, lacking, unpolished, or any other number of descriptive words" the prices of the tablets have been in the $100-300 price range, most in the $100-200 range. Please point out any Apple tablet that sells for anywhere near that price range as I would be interested in seeing it.
Would you compare two cars if one cost $20,000 and the other cost $50,000 as the same class of cars? I seriously doubt it. Yet people seem to have no problem ripping tablets that cost 1/3 the price of an iPad for not being an iPad.
"But this one goes to 11!"
It is about getting control of all of the rest of that. Look carefully at how many cheap knock-offs of iphone there are. In fact, look at all of the totally ripped-off clones of western goods are coming from China. The issue is that China is building up loads of engineering, design, etc companies because they have access to the cheap manufacturing. And the time is coming, soon, that China gov. owned companies will destroy Apple, HP, Dell, IBM, GE, Westinghouse, Sony, Samsung, etc.
Combine that with the fact that China is massively building up their military AND showing that they are ALL TOO HAPPY to use them, well, China's cold war with the west is in full swing while the fools around the west buy the BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
With modern production methods, as well as trends like environmentalism, here is a need for less and less jobs overall as productivity goes up and demand grows more slowly than productivity.
While thing were different in hunter-gatherer times, the rise of agriculture and industrialism led to a lot of work (because there was less land to support each person and expectations also rose). But then productivity continues to improve exponentially.
Here are some examples. Five year old kids used to have to work in mines 200 years ago. Now they are sent to "school" often until their mid twenties or even longer. Work weeks used to be 80+ hours per week. Now work weeks are 35-40 hours plus paid vacations. People used to work until they died. Now in Europe many retire in their mid-fifties and live and eat and play for another three decades. People in their mid-twenties used to be the backbone of the economy. Now many educated 20-somethings in Europe have no jobs (and are rioting over that regularly like in Greece).
Agriculture has gone from 90% of the workforce to 2% or so over the last two hundred years in the USA. US manufacturing went from around 35% to 16% over the past fifty years, while still making the same or more amount of stuff and at higher quality. That number continues downward.
With computers and robotics (especially vision systems), more and more service jobs will come user the same pressures. We need to rethink our economics to account for this. For ideas on that, see writings by Marshall Brain, Martin Ford, or stuff on my website (essentially, a basic income of social security and medicare for all, an improved gift economy like Wikipeida and the blogosphere and GNU/Linux and Freecycle, improved subsistence like with 3D printers and agricultural robots, and better democratic resource-based planning).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Why does Slashdot article summaries don't show the domain name of the link, like in the comments? For example, if I post something like Awesome Site then you see the domain name and can decide if the site is worth your time. Good that I normally watch the URL where the link goes before clicking on it, otherwise I would waste another 5 minutes.
China makes almost nothing out of assembling Apple's iPads and iPhones [forbes.com]
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Do not blame them. Blame the retailers esp. the big box and distributors. The deserve the vast majority of the blame. They are the ones ignoring western goods and bringing in chinese goods.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The fact that you believe this makes me really worry about the global awareness of Americans...
--Indian engineer
They might only profit 2% of every device, but the sheer scale of the whole manufacturing industry more than makes up for that.
That 2% figure is somewhat distorted. Here's something from a researcher at the same university as the other authors. Basically the 2% doesn't reflect currency manipulation that artificially deflates the numbers by 40%, it doesn't reflect externalized costs like pollution, it doesn't reflect governments supports like *free* factories, etc.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/china_trade_policy_and_the_fallacy_of_idea-land.html
is the way to go
How's their service then? I've never heard of Simple Mobile (they don't offer service in my area).
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
If I ever buy a tablet device, it'll most likely be Android based because of the Java-based programming core. With an iDevice, I'd have to buy a Mac and Apple software to play with it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
so that the healthcare costs are not part of the costs of labor. Also outsourcing does not work that well anyways just look at software that outsourced people code alot of the time it sucks.
skills learned on the Manufacturing level help out on the Design and innovation level and with outsourcing you end up losing that.
"Foxconn posts $943 million net profit for first half of 2011". That's not bad. Hon Hai (Foxconn's parent) continues to grow each year. They've just entered the solar panel industry.
Same as TMobile.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Seriously, the whole idea sounds like something the Morons would've come up with. To make a profit you have to sell something. But if you can't manufacture it, what product do you have to sell? What good are your designers if you've got nobody to turn your design into an actual product? What good are your retail stores if you don't have an actual product to put on their shelves? And if you outsource, what do you do when your manufacturing partners realize they've got you over a barrel and start demanding premium prices?
Being a plumber isn't a glamorous job. It means dealing with the dirty, stinky messes most people don't want to deal with. But it's got an upside: you'll never lack for work because everybody needs a plumber sooner or later and there's a lot more "everybodies" out there than there are plumbers. Most customers, after the first attempt or two at haggling and calling around about rates, will figure out that they're not in a strong bargaining position here. And the ones that don't? Well, they're ankle-deep in sewage but unlike you they're not getting paid for it.
I don't want to go an question the validity of the numbers that Forbes is throwing around here, but they don't exactly make sense to me. How can the cost of manufacturing be so low? If it's only 2% of the cost of a device anyway, why would you want to outsource it? The labor to make a $400 ipad is... $8? Really?
"Instant on" by itself has nothing to do with tablets - netbooks (and even laptops and desktops with SSD) just as well boot up in 30-45 sec and resume in 5.
Wow, thanks. That was very insightful. I guess that explains why the market for netbooks keeps growing and RIM and HP are doing so well. Only those Apple loyal fanatics buy Macs and iOS devices.
That's very interesting indeed, since it means that only the very small minority of computer users that are Apple fanatics are the ones purchasing iPads. I mean, those 13 million devices sold must be to the same 5% of users; they are so gullible that every one of them buys at least 4 at a time. Idiots.
As soon as they all buy their 5th one, Apple's bubble will surely pop, it can't go on forever; I mean, there is no market at all.
Carol vs. Ghost
Its also obvious that any idiot can become a PHB, Unfortunately, vacancies are restricted to idiots.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Trying to get as many as the rank and file population into gainful employment as possible? Those devious commie bastards...
So China's not cheap enough?
So maybe we've found an excuse for America's title of having the worlds largest prison population, "we", that is corporations can exploit them as a captive "slave labor" population, one with no rights, little safety regulations and the ability to take any measures to assure compliance (the US gov says that torture is OK now).
Made in USA, Whoopee!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Eastern Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OST-Arbeiter
indeed, many Nazi war crimes related to forced labor.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
AT&T's operating costs don't rise that much on supporting the iPhone. Not nearly as much as Apple's does. AT&T keeps as profit a larger share of its income from the iPhone than Apple does, as well as a larger sized share.
--
make install -not war
Something is wrong with that claim, since for instance Germany gains 750,000 fulltime jobs from manufacturing cars. It becomes 5 million if you also count associated jobs. In total there are 28 milion fulltime jobs in that 3rd world country.
Still paying the early adopter $25/m on Virgin Mobile...the data speeds are excellent, I've never hit a bandwidth cap, and since I use my phone more as a portable computer than a, well, phone, the small number of minutes on it isn't an issue. The fact that contract plans usually charge what I'm paying total to add a limited amount of data boggles my mind.
Manufacturing is quite a good business if you stay out of sheep retail crap like assembly of iPhones.
The USA is still the largest manufacturing country in the world based on the value of good produced. With only 8% or so of the population engaged in making stuff.
It's because the US makes things like airliners, heavy earth movers, CPUs and so on.
30-45 seconds and 5 seconds are not instant. The ipad really is instant, its connected to wifi and ready to go when you open it, its amazingly fast to check something in college with it. You can argue whether such a time difference really matters, but it feels very impressive. The little things can make all the difference in interaction. The tablet is one of the best devices ive purchased, they were made for college, have all my notes, books on there one tiny device, and its vastly nicer to read on than a laptop.
"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
China resembles right now the history of germany 100 years ago.
a) introduce social security to enable a stable induatiralized society
b) dump into markets with low price, low quality (thats what "mage in germany" stood for in the 19 century in england)
c) increas the inductry and develop science and technology based on this financial grounds.
I hope and firmly believe they will skip the "lets kill a significant part of the population phase".
The point is: you can not lure r&d into the country without having production there. Produce, learn, then invent.
If that were the appeal, don't you think the vastly more powerful Android devices, that support Flash, have more appropriate screens for multimedia, have better storage, and much more powerful CPUs, and are lower cost to boot, would be kicking the iPad's ass?
And please don't give me the "But... Android is teh succks!" crap. I've used both. Android's more than good enough outside of a few low end $150 devices. The sum total of a decent Honeycomb tablet is considerably more than an iPad, and yet the latter are selling?
Why? Because with very few exceptions, most people who get tablets do so because they look slick. And those tablets end up going into a drawer after a few weeks and that's it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As an IT guy, why do you oppose the paperless office? If we're going to keep moving paper around anyway, why should we bother with even having IT to secure in the first place?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
As opposed to a far cheaper netbook on which you can do all of that and a lot more besides, like being able to type without losing half the screen.
You are missing the point of the tablet form factor. Its much nicer to read on cause i can treat it like a book, easily lounge around with it, it just feels a lot more natural than a laptop form factor. The screen is also very good, its better than both my laptop and my main screen in terms of clarity and colours. It seems highly unlikely im ever gonna have so many books on there that I will fill it, most of them are only a couple of megs. The only big ones are textbooks and I only need a couple of them. I bring a small laptop too, the tablet is not replacing it, its a complementary device. Ill agree apple are pure scum and do love to rip people off if they can :)
"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
iPads, as far as I've seen from the original, are not "instant on". Rather, they're instant-wake from sleep, with a standard length boot. Same goes for my Galaxy S 10.1, and Lenovo X-series Tablet PC. This may have changed with the iPad 2, but I doubt it.
yea, thats true, i have ipad2, boot is slow, but i dont even remember the last time i rebooted it.
"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
If that were the appeal, don't you think the vastly more powerful Android devices, that support Flash, have more appropriate screens for multimedia, have better storage, and much more powerful CPUs, and are lower cost to boot, would be kicking the iPad's ass?
Because none of those make the device do more or do it easier. You are not the market. The vast majority of people have different needs in a computer than you do.
And those tablets end up going into a drawer after a few weeks and that's it.
[Citation Needed]
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Where does the author think he is going to get his toys and gadgets without manufacturing? Where does he think the ores will be processed into refined metals and machined/cast/forged/etc to make the machinery necessary to make iphones/ipads/droids/etc, to say nothing of the parts themselves?
An information economy needs manufacturing to survive
I seriously do not recognize the existence of such concept as "profit" in an environment where all revenue is always reinvested in future production. "Profit" can be clearly defined when someone places money into something, gets more money out of it, destroys it and runs away. This works very well for kids' lemonade stand (complete with "destroys and runs away" part), or a company that pays dividends while keeping its stock value constant, however it's completely meaningless in anything more complex.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
the value of that labour is trivial: 2% or so of the cost of the machine.
Labor and natural resources are THE ONLY costs of production -- everything can be traced down to either of those, including development (divided by the number of units produced). Basically, whatever does not grow on trees (natural resource) is made by a human (labor). It is not necessarily a human working for the company that sells the product, but if someone is paid for it, there has to be a human.
The price, of course, may be higher than cost -- and that can be used to calculate the "profit" that I have mentioned in my previous comment if not the mandatory reinvestment part (company like Apple would not be able to produce anything if it stopped investing in future development and production).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Poor is a relative term. Most working poor today live better than Kings from the 16th century. I'm not poor, I have a car and 4X4 truck, live in a nice house with central air and have cable and 20mbps cable internet. What I'm not is cash happy. I'm not jealous of people with money to burn, I live pretty good and I'm easily content but I can't see throwing 500 dollars at a device that I'm only going to use occasionally. If I get a nook and it serves my purpose I'm $250 to the good. Archos 10.1 tablet is about 300 and has a capacitive screen. I don't know how it compares with the iPad, so far the only 10" tablet I've seen that looked like it was equivalent was the Galaxy Tab from Samsung and it costs about the same as the iPad. I'll have to read up on the Archos as well now.
The reason main reason why tablets are a success, is because a lot of what we do with computers nowadays is pure media consumption. A lot of people generate very little beyond a tweet, email or facebook message.
For that kind of usage a tablet is great, especially if the battery can last for 8+ hours.
The tablet isn't replacing the PC or it's cousins the laptop and smartphone. It's replacing books, magazines, newspapers, TVs, notebooks, sketchbooks, clipboards, etc.
It's a media consumption device. It has the potential to be as disruptive as the PC was. It could replace the TV and nearly all things we print to, or write on paper.
It has had this potential for a long time already. It's only that with the iPad we're starting to narrow down to a working design. It will take a decade before we'll see it become ubiquitous. By 2020 we'll know if the paperless office has finally arrived.
I think that once these things get below $50, they'll start replacing books and newspapers at an astonishing rate. Companies like Xerox could go the way of Kodak.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
The reason manufacturing is important is because it creates additional jobs beyond just those involved in a particular product
Wrong. The reason manufacturing is important is because it makes the stuff. No designer has a job if the product they design stays on the computer. Design is important, too, but the real goal of an economy ought to be to make the stuff... the more stuff there is, the more stuff there is to go around.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I don't understand why people think they want manufacturing jobs .. for fucks sake it's redundant and repetitious .. yet you people grow up wanting to be a mindless drone for 8+ hours of the day? Seriously. Heck, if I was king .. manufacturing jobs would likely be banned in accordance with being against human rights or something .. robots would have to do it all. People can own shares in companies instead.
If you hate working retail, you'll REALLY hate working in manufacturing.
Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero Sum.
Casteism
New robots/machines are most likely to appear in existing factories. And when a manufacturing company builds a brand new factory, it's likely to pick a location near existing factories. Plus it's not only about cheap labor but also about fewer regulations and more economic freedom in general.
Well, I just love it when you cowards do not even show your face.
You will find that the imports/exports from America to Germany and South Korea are about equal. Why? Because if they export too much, then they will be holding too many dollars. Their money will then rise against the dollar. So, the businesses and gov. buy cheaper products from America. In fact, if you exclude China and Oil, America has no trade deficit. And if you exclude just China, the trade deficit is not that large. It is China that is the issue. Why? Because they have not honored their FTA and WTO and IMF agreeements. At this time, they have up barriers all over against western goods EXCEPT from Asian partners (such as Japan). That is illegal and should be stopped.
I agree that America has screwed up our gov. finances. I have been opposed to our debts starting with reagan. And yes, some of our industry has been all too willing to screw over America, though to be honest, it is less industry and more distributors and retailers. Target/K-Mart started jumping to China to compete against Walmart. Even to this day, it is a bitch for American companies to get into retailers.
However, that does not excuse China's manipulation which is purposely causing the west a lot of issues. The one good news is that your housing bubble has started to pop. That means that China is about to plumit in economic output and we will see other bubbles popping in China. And it is DROPPING. All of China's trade partners are about to find out what happens when you depend on a nation that cheats. You steel sales are plummiting. You just started raising more tariffs again including against SUVs manufactured in North America (but not from Japan).
And I agree that China has not been running around the world, but that is about to change. Not only have the invaded India, but are now daming rivers that feed India, Bangladash, southwest Asia. Hell, they denied it even when heavy equipment was being moved in. They have tried to claim numerous lands and islands that not only do they not have claims on, but never have. Some that were given to other nations. But the real issue is their military build-up. You have your first blue water aircraft carrier, wtih at least 2 known keels laid. Your space station is a miltiary base, and not a civilian outpost. You are doing 2-4 new nuke subs each year. No, China is about to get REAL aggressive around the world. Esp. now. Heck, China is now basing in Venezuela and has asked Pakistan to be allowed to put an ARMY and AF base there (that is going to make India VERY nervous).
With this year being an election in America, I would think that China would re-think through their latest set of screws to everybody. As it is, with your multiple tariffs going up, I suspect that we will finally pass a broad set of tariffs against Chinese goods. That will be to prevent your dumping them on America. Thankfully, EU, except for Germany, already blocks much of your garbage.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, China is one of the largest military spending nations and most of it went into new weapon systems. This is due to their command economy, which outside of companies that export, their economy remains a command economy.
America is spending the bulk of our money fighting W's wars. While we belong in Afghanistan, we should have finished that up and been out of there by 2006. More importantly, we should NEVER have gone into Iraq and likewise the same with Libya. However, we had lying neo-cons that put us into Iraq, while EU put us into Libya.
And I was NEVER speaking about 'China taking away all jobs'. You obviously do not get it. EU has a number of barriers against China and other trade. As such, you maintain a more balanced trade deficit. China is BEGGING you to drop your barriers and it was apparently made as a pre-condition for their willingness to bail our your mess. Thankfully, you folks did not do that.
OTH, we have obeyed pretty much the FTA that we signed with them. They, OTH, have reneged on just about everything. In particular, they manipulate their money directly, rather than allowing the market to decide. But it extends well beyond that. In particular, they have numerous trade barriers up. At the time of the FTA, they had 90. Now, they are well over 400 and rising them quickly. Perhaps you missed the recent one in which they blocked mercedes SUVs made in America, but not the exact same car from Germany? Likewise, with their bubbles bursting, they have already started to dump on the global market. China is going to get worse. That is why I want to see tariffs rise here in America.
As to wages, the companies that are MINORITY owned by western companies are required to pay much then double what Chinese owned companies pay. And it will remain that way until China feels that they can destroy the dollar and the Euro. As it is, they are pushing for these companies to raise their pay so that chinese owned have a great advantage. IOW, it is not free market principles.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You have to remember though, that there is a huge offer of human beings and it only seems to expand. Add to that the fact that humans are incredibly capable and adaptable super computers, you can see this trend going on for a long time.
One interesting example is the way in which they use people to input captchas in order to allow their bots to spam.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
If I ever buy a tablet device, it'll most likely be Android based because of the Java-based programming core. With an iDevice, I'd have to buy a Mac and Apple software to play with it.
My granddaughter found a much more efficient approach. She just got an iPad as a Christmas present, and she has been using it non-stop ever since, without having a Mac and without worrying about any programming languages. Could it be you are just overthinking these things?
Eastern minds typically grow up playing "Go", which teaches a very different way of "winning" (by encirclement) than Western Chess
Er, chess also originated in the 'east', specifically India, before being brought West around the first millennium.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
You will find that the imports/exports from America to Germany and South Korea are about equal.
Not even close. Exports to Germany in 2011 total about $ 40 billion, imports from Germany in 2011 are about $ 80 billion. The ratio is up from about 3:4 (imports : exports) from the early 90s to the 1:2 it is today (see http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c4280.html)
In fact, if you exclude China and Oil, America has no trade deficit.
Wrong again: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/2011/10/deficit.html
And I agree that China has not been running around the world, but that is about to change. Not only have the invaded India [...]
China invading India? Are you talking about the Sino-Indian war in the early 60s? Where's the connection to post-industialized China?
But the real issue is their military build-up.
Soon they will be invading countries left and right, start kidnapping and killing random people from all around the world, from "allied" and "enemy" countries alike, imprison them without any rule of law and torturing them. These bastards.
I suspect that we will finally pass a broad set of tariffs against Chinese goods. That will be to prevent your dumping them on America
Right, protectionsim will save you.
Are you claiming that the iPad isn't the best selling tablet?
Apples costs are about 50% for marketing alone. I can't prove it, but look around you and then you price what it will cost you to post the same amount of information in every city in the country.
The manufacturers do make money, and their children are going to get university educations. The next generation of inventors and new products are going to come from their children. Why do I say that? Because these kids see what is wrong with current manufacturing and how it can be further improved.
The outsourcing of manufacturing also outsources university graduates and prevents some locals from having enough financing to complete a bachelor degree.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Do laptops have legitimate use? A laptop is a portable, less heavy computer which by its form factor nature is more restricted (you can't swap out the mobo for alternatives, you can't put in your own video card, etc.)
Is that acceptable?
Then why the hell do you have a problem with a tablet? It is just a slightly smaller, much lighter, laptop with an even smaller form factor and is even more restricted to hardware and software.
Imagine a gradient. At 0% is COMPUTER, and at 100% is TABLET. At 50% is LAPTOP. People want different things along this spectrum. One-size-fits-all is just small-minded thinking. Not everybody lives EXACTLY the life you do. In fact, NOBODY lives exactly the life you do; by definition we are different. It is a tautology.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Yes, but as a human gets more skilled and capable, he wants more pay. You simply cannot pay CEO salary to all your manufacturers and laborers, its basic economy. So if you can't offer them more money, and these "skilled" people have the option to work in an office or work hard labor in your factory, which are they going to pick? Human motivation seeks to minimize physical labor. In the long run, it WILL be replaced by robotics entirely. We just still have a ways to go.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
The lack of manufacturing jobs isnt about GDP, Americas GDP is not lower now but unemployment is. Its the lack of low paying jobs that has caused the increase in unemployment.
Profits don't help employees at all.
While I don't like feeding the trolls I can clarify on the laptop issue:
On a plane I can't get my screen to open at a good enough angle while sitting on the tray (especially if the seat in front is reclined at all). If I was riding first class it wouldn't be an issue, but I don't ride first class.
The case on my tablet allows me to have it angled while sitting in portrait and I can type quick quickly on it (not as fast as a computer but 30wpm or quicker). So it works for composing notes, email etc fine. I tend to use paper notepads while on a plane as well for scribbling ideas, drawing relationships etc. Then I can use my tablet for reading reference material. I can fit my notepad and tablet beside each other on a cattle class airplane tray no problem.
I don't code while on a plane. If I wanted to do that I'd have to resort to pulling out my laptop, but so far I've found I can keep myself busy without coding. I find it a better time to research things and do planning.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I don't. I just don't see why a tablet, and particularly an iPad, is better than a netbook as far too many people assert on here because let's face it, it isn't. It's impossible to upgrade, twice the price, a fraction of the storage and doesn't run anything like the amount of software and hardware that a netbook can. If you want a tablet then have one. However don't try to tell me that a 400 quid iPad 2 is better than my 200 quid Aspire One because it most certainly isn't.
However don't try to tell me that a 400 quid iPad 2 is better than my 200 quid Aspire One because it most certainly isn't.
Once again, this is one-size-fits-all thinking. What about the mom that wants to carry around a computer, but doesn't want to actually CARRY around a computer, and an iPad fits in her purse where a laptop doesn't. Are you really that limited to your own experience?
:O!!!! WHAT?!??!?!!
Yes, for most power users like yourself you'd prefer a laptop over a tablet.
Surprise: MOST PEOPLE AREN'T POWER USERS.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
My NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NOT LAPTOP is pretty much the same size as an iPad, can do a lot more and will fit in the hypothetical mum's handbag quite easily (assuming she has a big enough handbag for an iPad in the first place). And if this hypothetical mum finds that it's running out of RAM or storage space she can go to a shop and get it upgraded for about the cost of a replacement iPad power supply. I don't think one size fits all, I'm not one of the delusional morons on here who thinks that an iPad, which costs 400 pounds, is an adequate replacement for a good NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NOT LAPTOP, which costs 200 pounds. If you want a crippled giant iPod that's up to you but don't try and tell me that it's better than a NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NOT LAPTOP because it quite clearly isn't, except for a few edge cases like the navigation charts example.
What if you prefer a touch interface to a mouse and keyboard, or a nipple and keyboard?
Hm.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Whether you prefer a touchscreen or not, that doesn't make the iPad a better device than my netbook. If people want tablets that's completely up to them, and I'm pleased for them that they're happy with something that doesn't work as well as a device that costs half as much. However if anyone asked me if it was worth buying an iPad I would give them the advantages and disadvantages of it over a netbook, recommend the netbook as being more useful to them and let them make their own mind up about it.
that doesn't make the iPad a better device than my netbook.
You're still missing the point. You can't compare apples and oranges and say one is objectively better than the other. It is your opinion, it is based on which features you value (extensiblility, freedom, control, power, cost). If you valued other features (touchscreen, very low weight, low size, controlled minimal OS so noobs can't screw it up) then you would think the iPad is better. I don't know why you're having so much trouble with this.
If people want tablets that's completely up to them
Yes, it is.
and I'm pleased for them that they're happy with something that doesn't work as well as a device that costs half as much.
Apparently you don't understand economics at all. Often times it is worth paying more to get additional features, even if those features are minuscule, if they are necessary to the function you need to use the tool for.
However if anyone asked me if it was worth buying an iPad I would give them the advantages and disadvantages of it over a netbook, recommend the netbook as being more useful to them and let them make their own mind up about it.
BINGO. Why it took you so long to get here I do not understand. After all the "I don't understand why anybody would want one of these" and "these aren't better than laptops period" and "you idiots are only buying iPads because you like the shiny apple" you've finally arrived at the right answer:
To each his own.
You're free to inform others of your perceived advantages / disadvantages. But you need to be willing to recognize that what is a disadvantage to you might actually be an advantage to somebody else.
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While it's only 2% of the revenue of the i-Device, it pays over 1 MILLION people a living, middle class wage in China. Foxconn (i-Device maker) employs over 920k directly (wikipedia). They also get components which are also China made, not to mention how the wages stimulate local economies. Foxconn has supply chain requirements which effectively requires payment of living wages. Without i-Device, several million jobs would be lost.
This also doesn't factor in how China forces Foxconn to effectively bring prosperity to poorer parts of China. There are many parts of China where people are under-employed and Chinese govt effectively dictated to Foxconn to create factories to train worker, to bring wealth to stimulate local economy (building factories, employing people, etc) and every few years kicking them further inward while the local govt run factories take over the trained employees to make mature products and fulfill internal demand
China is all about the 8% growth, without i-Device, and foreign input, it simply would not be possible. The local corruption is too inefficient to maintain the growth.
They aren't better than NETBOOKS NETBOOKS NETBOOKS NETBOOKS NETBOOKS NOT LAPTOPS. I can see exactly why they could be better than laptops which are heavy to lug around and can't be used one handed. However netbooks weigh about the same and are superior machines. Your only counter argument has been "what if they want touchscreens". You haven't given a single decent advantage that my 200 quid computer has over your 400 quid iPad except it has a less capable interface. If someone feels that a crapper, more easily damaged interface is worth paying an extra 200 quid for than that's up to them but it doesn't make it a BETTER device.
I have never said "don't buy", I've only ever said that the iPad isn't better than my NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NOT LAPTOP because even a cursory examination of the capabilities and lifespan (i.e. upgradability) of the two would show the iPad to be severely lacking compared to the NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NETBOOK NOT LAPTOP. I never called anyone an idiot either, else I would be calling myself an idiot since I'm currently typing this on a 27" iMac, so your next argument about me being anti-Apple will also fall on its arse.
You need to realize that the word "Better" as you define it is "my opinion". There's nothing objective about it.
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so your next argument about me being anti-Apple will also fall on its arse.
Please stop this sort of straw-man nonsense. Comments like these are filling up the forums with stupidity.
Never said anything of the sort, and wasn't going to. And you don't need to "help" my argument either, and you know that damn well, you're just trying to make me look bad with an obviously wrong argument. Logic 101, avoid fallacies.
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Better is: more storage, more RAM, more applications, more connectivity, more potential to expand the power of the machine.
Better is not: only a touchscreen (well I suppose that's a matter of opinion, granted), a fixed amount of storage, a fixed amount of RAM, an easily damaged screen, a higher price, limited and non-upgradeable connectivity, a lower resolution screen, fewer applications, fewer devices, fewer audio and video codecs, the requirement to pay Apple $99 a year or invalidate your warranty if you want the privilege of installing what you want instead of what Apple decides you can have, no Flash (I hate it too but there are many sites that require it).
That may be subjective to you but those are all reasons why my little netbook is superior to your iPad and most of those reasons apply to Android tablets as well. I did have a look at the eeePad Transformer as it had fewer downsides than the iPad. It's a good machine but it still comes with fuck all storage and any serious increase in the requirements of future software will require me to buy another one.
I wouldn't advise someone to buy one but I wouldn't criticise anyone for owning one, merely for asserting that it's a better machine than my netbook when it isn't. Which is why we keep going round in circles. You have completely failed to make your case, now either give up or come up with a compelling reason why tablets are actually better rather than taking offence at my pretty reasonable points.
You were the one putting words into my mouth. I never called anyone an idiot but I do believe that the success of the iPad is a triumph of marketing over product. That doesn't make an iPad buyer stupid, it just means that the marketing is very good.
Your stubbornness and small-mindedness is staggering :(
I tried.
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